HEYDAR ALIYEV CENTER of unconventional ways, and one who paid no attention to critics who called her works impractical. Many great projects were made after this. These include an opera house in Guangzhou, China, for which she used nature as a large inspiration. She compared the building to ‘pebbles in a stream smoothed by erosion’. This unique shape reminds you of the relation between architecture and nature, and the way that the two are connected. Another brilliant piece of architecture was completed in 2013. The Heydar Aliyev Center in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, was designed as a cultural center with fluid lines and motions made to connect the building to the surrounding square. It is simply an excellent, original piece of architecture, that stands in stark contrast with the rest of the city. Her extravagant ideas and concepts became a reality, and with it she became one of the most famous
architects of all time. Proof of her fame and renown came when she won multiple awards for her work, especially the Pritzker prize. She was one of the few architects to ever win this prestigious prize.
Parametricism Of course, this all could not have been accomplished if it was not for her architecture firm, and her partner Patrik Schumacher. He played an instrumental role in her designs and even created the term parametricism to accurately describe the way they used a computer-based approach to their designs. Explaining what parametricism really entails and why it is so important that these two architects popularized the term, is not easy. The simplest way is to say that parametric design uses a system of variables to produce a certain geometric shape, which can be made
into any possible shape, as long as the variables allow it. This way of designing obviously allows architects to come up with outrageous shapes, and was therefore a revolutionary approach in architecture. Schumacher even argues that it will become known as the next great style after modernism. Parametricism is an entirely new style in and of itself, but will be different than other great architectural styles, in a way that is very remarkable. Mainstream architectural styles today are nothing more than modernism with a slight twist, according to Schumacher. Parametricism is completely new, with daring projects popping up all around the globe, many of them created by Zaha Hadid Architects. Their projects have proved that parametricism as a style is not just a distant dream, but it is a style that works and a style that is liked and appreciated by architecture lovers. These architects made this new architectural style big and have had, without a doubt, an enormous influence on the architectural community. To say that they invented this style is not correct, as there are many cases of architects using variables to determine the shape of a future building, but they did in fact popularize it immensely. Perhaps this is the reason why many people always say Zaha Hadid’s buildings cannot be categorized in one particular style. It is because she made her own.
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Images: 1. Black Square and Red Square (source: wikiart.org, edit: Karim Jaspers) 2. Vitra Fire Station (source: flickr.com, edit: Karim Jaspers 3. Heydar Aliyev Center (source: commons.wikimedia.org, edit: Karim Jaspers)
Sources: 1. Michael Kimmelman. “Zaha Hadid, Groundbreaking Architect, Dies at 65”. March 31, 2016. Nytimes.com 2. Unknown. “Zaha Hadid receives Royal Gold Medal”. February 4, 2016. Architecture.com 3. Patrik Schumacher. “Patrik Schumacher on Parametricism – ‘Let the style wars begin’”. May 6, 2010. Architectsjournal.co.uk
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